


you make the darkness seem so far

by 1460alt



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Character Death Discussion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Moving On, Not Really Character Death, Reincarnation, Seo Changbin is a Good Friend, celestial beings - Freeform, chan is trying his best, minho has a lot going on, talks of karma and fate and spirituality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28517931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1460alt/pseuds/1460alt
Summary: Things aren’t exactly as Minho has always thought. Between how he got here and where he’s supposed to go now, he’s got a lot to figure out.
Kudos: 3





	you make the darkness seem so far

“Where am I?” Minho stood and stretched, his back aching horribly. He felt like he’d just hit the surface of the water flat on his back after jumping from somewhere he ought not to be jumping from. As he waited for the pain to ease up, he looked around wherever he currently was. It wasn’t anywhere he could immediately distinguish, it didn’t look like anywhere he’d ever been at all. In fact, it didn’t much look like anywhere he thought he _should_ be either.

“Hello?” he called into the abyss of black, turning this way and that. He was no longer mindful of the ache in his back, mind narrowing in anxiety as he continued to turn and stumble through the darkness. “Hello?”

He must be rather pitiful, though he had no presence of mind to think so, beginning to tremble in the wake of whatever damned place he was stuck. Was he concussed? Was he blind? Was he comatose? As the fear and uncertainty began to crescendo, Minho found himself pathetically sinking to the floor of the strange place once again, breath becoming shallow and laboured as he attempted to soothe his racing mind. He couldn’t count on his senses right now, there was nothing he could see or feel or smell or hear, nothing besides himself. Minho was about to give in to panic until he heard a soft gasp. His head whipped up, and he came face to face with a very guilty-looking man.

“Oh dear, oh my goodness, I left you alone too long, didn’t I?”

Minho’s panic gave way to confusion, but instead of softening it only increased. He fell backward as he surveyed the man, keeping one hand close to his chest as he desperately struggled away from him. The man held out his hands placatingly, but Minho only regarded him with distrust. He jutted his chin out at him, trying to get his breathing under enough control to sound intimidating. “Who are you, where am I?”

The curly-haired man sighed. “I’m so very sorry to keep you waiting for so long, I’m Chan. I’m not going to hurt you, Minho.”

Minho glared, shuffling away when Chan attempted to take another step toward him. “Shut up, don’t come any closer. Where am I? And how do you know my name?”

Chan sighed again and sat down, keeping his hands where Minho could see them as he settled in across from the other. Minho balled himself up, curling in protectively as he eyed the other warily.

“I suppose I should start at the beginning, hm? Oh, Jisung always says that I spend entirely too much time explaining but I suppose it won’t hurt this once.” Minho didn’t know who Jisung was but he wasn’t going to ask, leveling Chan with an intense stare in the hopes that he would continue. Chan pressed his eyes closed. “I’m the moon.” Minho went to interrupt, but Chan plowed on. “I am the celestial manifestation of what you humans,” here he paused but quickly continued, “what you humans understand to be the moon. I am not the moon itself, as the moon itself is simply a rock, but my physical manifestation is formed by celestial energy. I am a deity but not an organic one, per se. I’m a physical manifestation of human consciousness and celestial energy.”

“That’s confusing.” Minho frowned. “So you’re real but not real, the moon but not really the moon.” Chan nodded. “Okay, cool, whatever. What does that have to do with me? Are you, what, revealing a prophecy to me? Am I supposed to fill the human race in on some otherworldly higher power’s moral bidding for the sake of life on earth?”

Chan grimaced, and Minho didn’t know how to take it. He was either right on the head, or very wrong. “Minho…” Chan gentled. Okay so he was wrong. How wrong? “Minho, you’re dead.”

Oh. Very wrong.

He barked a laugh. Sue him, what else was he supposed to do?

“Dead. I’m dead.” Minho laughed again, Chan looking increasingly concerned for him. Screw him. Screw everything. Minho was _dead_.

“Minho—” Chan started, before abruptly realizing that Minho was no longer laughing and was, in fact, crying. “Oh, Minho…”

“You’re so bad at this.” Minho heard another voice cut in, looking up and blinking until his vision cleared enough to see the other person. He looked younger than Chan, but then again Minho had always been a bad judge of things like age. He lost focus on their conversation, wallowing in his own self-pity, but he could tell the newcomer was laying into Chan. Good, he deserved it for dropping that bomb on Minho. Really, how rude did you have to be to just flat out tell someone they were dead? That had to be breaking protocol.

“Yo, Mumbles.” Minho viciously wiped his face on his jacket sleeve and then glared up at the other.

“What do you want?”

“Are you coming, or not?”

What?

Minho scrambled up as he realized they were leaving him, hurriedly following them to see where exactly they’d wind up. As long as it was out of the abyss he thought he’d prefer pretty much anywhere. As they walked, he focused more on what they were actually talking about.

“Are you sure? I mean—”

“Trust me, he’ll like having something to do. Did you even _look_ at his past life before you brought him up here or did you just hear his cry and expect to be his savior?”

There was a hard silence, followed by a “that’s what I thought”.

“Minho.” He perked up, looking up from his feet to see the other gesturing to something. “I’m Changbin. I’m very sorry for how suddenly this must have come to you, and how scary and confusing and irritating it must be.”

Minho nodded. It certainly was all of those things.

“Here in the celestial plane, we become what we are one of two ways. Through our will, or through a collective will. You, however, are a special case.” Minho nodded again, gingerly sitting in the chair Changbin guided him to. A keyboard materialized in front of him and he jerked back, the only thing keeping him on the music stool being Changbin’s hand on his back. “Feel free to fidget, I’ll be explaining some things.”

“Sometimes, when we lose people, they don’t actually leave. Not everything that leaves is gone, sometimes it just becomes something new.” Minho found his hands itching to play all of a sudden, and he smoothed the pads of his fingers over the keys without pressing down. His focus was still on Changbin, but muscle memory was beginning to take hold. Minho was a dancer, he didn’t even know how to play the piano except for a couple of simple songs. But right at that moment, he knew every song he could have dreamed of. As he began playing, Changbin continued. “Sometimes when a soul is too strong, or too pure, or simply too new to fully leave, it will become something new. This is where people get the idea of reincarnation. They just don’t account for the fact that they may not always be reincarnated into something physical.”

Minho could hear the music playing, and could see his hands moving, but could not relate the two. Minho had never been good at instruments. He could sing, he could keep time, he could move his body any way he pleased, but he could not play. This, though, this was undoubtedly natural to him.

Chan moved into a seat next to him, beginning to play beside him. It was beautiful. Minho felt a strange emotion begin to settle into his chest.

“You have an exceptional soul,” Chan continued from where Changbin left off. “It’s incredible, really. I wouldn’t describe it as pure, more true. You are a very self-evident person. People find you to be honest and genuine, a very sincerely emotive person. You don’t boast or brag, you don’t apologize or shy away, and you communicate honestly and openly. You are a truly one of a kind person, and everyone in your life knew how you felt about them.” The emotion began to grow, and Minho felt his throat close up. He continued to play, even as his vision blurred again.

“Then why?” He choked out, and Chan leaned against his shoulder. Despite himself, he leaned into it.

“Because,” Chan said, “we can’t fix everything. Sometimes things happen because they happen, and not really because they were meant to or supposed to. Bad things don’t happen as tests or because they’re fate, there just happen to be things that even escape the will of the universe. You didn’t die because you were supposed to, you just did.”

Minho nodded, blinking away his tears. It was both reassuring and not, the concept of there being no true fate or karma. It was comforting to know that he didn’t die because someone or something else willed him to, but at the same time he was still dead. Their playing began to taper into what Minho recognized as the song coming to an end. He asked, “so what am I, now?”

“You,” Chan smiled, “are a star.”

It was quiet, their song closing until the final note echoed across the expanse of the universe. When Minho looked up, he was nearly blinded. All around them, in every direction, was a dome of stars. It looked like the images he’d only ever seen from satellite photos, the purple and pink and blue and green of massive colorful galaxies splashed in every direction, what must have been billions of stars as far as the eye could see.

“But, why?”

“Because,” Changbin cut in, “you didn’t want to die.”

Oh. _Oh_. Oh, that was right.

Minho could see it now, in his mind’s eye. The struggle, the depth, the pleading, and the wait. The wait had been the worst of it, that was what he had thought then. Nothing could have ever compared to the pain that the waiting put him through.

“So, I’m here because I willed it to happen?” Changbin made a noncommittal noise and Chan’s shoulders shrank in, Minho throwing them a confused look.

“Normally, that’s how it happens, yes. However, true souls aren’t on the same playing field as pure souls or strong souls or even new souls. Your cry likely would have gone unanswered if it weren’t for this guy.”

Chan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know this isn’t what you asked for. I know this wasn’t what you intended when you said you didn’t want to die. But, well, it’s so rare that the human world gives us someone like you. Someone so unashamed with such raw potential. I couldn’t let you go.”

Minho locked eyes with Chan. There was an intensity in his gaze that made Minho’s face heat up, and after a moment he found himself having to look away.

“Well— well, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have taken it, had it been on the table.” He took a deep breath. “And besides, how bad could it be, being a star?”

His fingers smoothed over the keys again, but the same burning need to play wasn’t there. It felt settled for the moment, but at the same time he could feel something shifting under his skin. It was magnetizing, drawing his gaze up to find the other two caught in a heated stare-down. Minho watched them have a conversation with just their eyes for several moments before finally they both turned back to him. Chan regarded him warmly while Changbin was more stern, but Minho was beginning to think that may in fact just be his resting face.

“So, what exactly is the job of a star?”

Changbin quirked his mouth to the side in a lopsided smile, and Minho knew even if Changbin was still trying to keep him at arm’s length that their friendship was off to a good start. “Well, as someone who’s had the position for much longer, I suppose I could show you the ropes.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Chan laughed, “he’s been dying for company.”

Minho let them play-shove each other for a moment while simply gazing into the depth of stars. Things would be strange, and they would be different, but Minho was nothing if not adaptable. He would figure things out, and he would take this new life in stride.

“Alright, Minho. Ready to go?”

He turned to see Chan holding his hand out and smiled.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> come find me at [@1460alt](https://twitter.com/1460alt) on twitter!


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